The Cleveland Museum of Art

Collection Online as of October 5, 2026

A vellum book page features a block of Latin text in black script on the left, punctuated by gold and blue initials. Red ruling lines frame the composition. To the right, a vertical gold-leaf border displays a strawberry plant with red fruit, a patterned butterfly, and a flowering vine with white and red blossoms. The naturalistic illustrations are painted in tempera, standing out against the metallic gold background.

Hours of Queen Isabella the Catholic, Queen of Spain: Fol. 204r

c. 1500

Master of the First Prayerbook of Maximillian

(Flemish, c. 1444–1519)

and Associates

Flanders, Ghent and Bruges, late 15th century
ink, tempera, and gold on vellum
Codex: 22.5 x 15.2 cm (8 7/8 x 6 in.)
Leonard C. Hanna Jr. Fund 1963.256.204.a
Location: 110B Late Gothic(not visible)

Description

This manuscript was illuminated by a circle of at least five highly organized manuscript painters active in the Flemish cities of Ghent and Bruges. The principal illuminator was Alexander Bening, who painted the majority of the book's miniatures. Manuscripts produced by this circle of artists are renowned for the decoration of their borders, which typically feature a rich variety of realistically-painted flowers, birds, and butterflies. This prayer book, called a book of hours, was intended not for a cleric, but for the private devotions of a lay person-in this case, Isabella the Catholic, Queen of Spain (1451-1504). Isabella's coat of arms embellishes the book's frontispiece. It is unlikely that the book was commissioned by the Queen herself; rather, she probably received it as a diplomatic gift from someone courting her patronage, perhaps Cardinal Francisco Jimenez de Cisneros. A Franciscan friar, Jimenez was dependent upon Isabella for his advancement, first to the post of Queen's confessor in 1492, and then to Archbishop of Toledo in 1495.
  • c.1500-
    Unidentified first owner? (c. 1500)
    Isabella the Catholic, Queen of Castile
    Baron Edmond de Rothschild (Late 1800s till 1934)
    1934-1954
    Baron Maurice de Rothschild
    1954-1963
    (Rosenberg & Stiebel, New York, NY), sold to the Cleveland Museum of Art
    1963-
    The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, Oh
  • {{cite web|title=Hours of Queen Isabella the Catholic, Queen of Spain: Fol. 204r|url=false|author=Master of the First Prayerbook of Maximillian, Associates|year=c. 1500|access-date=05 October 2026|publisher=Cleveland Museum of Art}}

Source URL:

https://www.clevelandart.org/art/1963.256.204.a